在1987年，美国航空公司推出了一种能无限量搭乘头等舱的VIP机票，而一名叫Steve Rothstein的银行家以一张25万美元的价格买了这张超优惠机票，更多花15万美元买了张副票以便能多带一人。
据台湾中时电子报7月8日报道，航空公司当初认为如果是一般的美国人，若花一辈子搭飞机也比花25万美元买机票多不了多少，但事情却没有这么简单。Steve Rothstein开启疯狂无限量头等舱旅游模式，为了小事就坐头等舱去玩，他不但带着亲戚朋友，还会带陌生人跟自己一起飞，这些年来他飞了超过1000万英里（约合1609万公里），足足可以绕地球400圈！
Steve Rothstein帮助旅客旅游超过4000万英里，例如在机场看到一个没有钱飞回家看生病的孩子而在机场大哭的母亲，就用里程换了一张飞回家的头等舱，这时美国航空才崩溃发现原来这群拿着终身头等舱机票的人侵蚀了他们相当大的利润。
航空公司开始展开调查，在机场拦住用Steve Rothstein附属票飞回家乡的学生，并逼学生说“一定是你给他钱才拿到票的”，但学生坚持没给他票钱，因此这不算转卖，也不算违规，找了许久才找到两名曾给Steve Rothstein钱的人，这才在2008年把Steve Rothstein的票取消了。他表示虽然人生中最大的乐趣被剥夺了，而能把用25万美元买来的超优惠机票玩成这样也算值得，这样的奇闻也因此画下句点。
He’s the man who flew too much.
Steve Rothstein bought a golden ticket from American Airlines in 1987 — granting him a lifetime of unlimited travel.
He clocked more than 10 million miles and 10,000 flights. He used his power to fly hopeless strangers home, a friend to the Louvre, and a priest to Rome to meet the pope.
He hopped planes to other cities just for a baseball game or a sandwich.
Everybody, even American’s CEO, knew his name.
“[I] became a hero at the airline,” Rothstein, 61, a Manhattan investment banker, told The Post. “I could just show up and get a seat.”
But in 2008, AA accused him of fraud and snatched his bottomless boarding pass.
American is reviewing its AAirpass program to find ways to terminate some of the 66 high-flying contracts that are costing the company millions of dollars a year.
Rothstein, then living in Chicago, bought his AAirpass for $250,000, plus a companion ticket for $150,000 more.
“I could go someplace and I wouldn’t even have to think about it,” he said. “Just make the reservation and go.”
He traveled 18 times in July 2004 alone, jetting to Nova Scotia, Maine, London, Los Angeles and Denver.
Once a business meeting in Miami was postponed for a day, so he took a junket to Caracas.
He booked flights under fake names such as “Bag Rothstein” if he didn’t know who his companion would be — a practice that the airline later used to accuse him of fraud.
Because of the AAirpass, his daughter went to boarding school in Switzerland. He took his son to dozens of nationwide sporting events including the Yankees-Mets Subway Series.
Some days he flew to Providence, RI, home of his alma mater, Brown University, just for a baloney-and-Swiss-cheese melt from a place called Geoff’s.
“A very fun Saturday would be to wake up early and fly to Detroit, rent a car and go to Ontario, have lunch and spend $50 or $100 buying Canadian things,” Rothstein said.
He’d be home in time for dinner with his wife and friends.
“But I wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, I went to Canada today.’ That would sound obnoxious.”
Still, the charmed traveler paid his fortune forward.
He gave away all of his 14 million air miles. If a stranded traveler was crying — such as one woman desperately trying to return to Bronxville, NY, because her children didn’t have a baby sitter — he’d offer her his companion seat.
“I felt those random acts of kindness were exactly the sorts of things that we’re meant to do as people,” he said.
It was on another goodwill trip that Rothstein was ultimately dethroned, and he had no idea it was coming.
On Dec. 13, 2008, he checked in at Chicago O’Hare International Airport with a friend, a policeman hoping to return to his native Bosnia.
An AA employee gave him a letter saying his pass had been terminated due to fraudulent activity.
He went home in shock and didn’t leave bed for days.
“I feel betrayed,” Rothstein said, adding that he helped sell AAirpasses to firms and spoke at the carrier’s events. “They took away my hobby and my life. They essentially destroyed my persona.”
Rothstein filed a lawsuit and a federal judge in Illinois ruled against him for booking under phony names. The case is now being appealed.
“Our country is almost captive to big companies who have incredible power to do whatever they want to do,” said Rothstein, who moved to New York in 2009. “It’s hard to fight them.”
But that’s just what he’s doing to get his beloved AAirpass back.
“They signed a contract,” he said, “and a contract’s a contract.”
Frequent flier Steve Rothstein’s travels under American Airlines’ AAirpass program since 1987, which allowed him first-class flights for life:
* 10,000: Number of flights
* 10 million: Miles traveled
* 40 million: Frequent-flier miles earned
* 500: Trips to England
* 70: Trips to Australia
* 120: Tokyo flights
* $21 million: Cost of the flights to American Airlines
* $250,000: What Rothstein paid for his AAirpass in 1987
* $3 million: Cost of an AAirpass in 2004, the last year it was offered
* 0: Number that sold that year